Where Winter Finds You (Black Dagger Brotherhood #18)- J.R Ward Page 0,115

either, however, because in Southie, where he had been born and raised, there were only about a thousand red-haired women.

Well, and there was also the fact that he hadn’t seen any member of his family, extended or otherwise, for what, two years now? Three? He’d lost count, although not because he didn’t care.

Actually, that was a lie. He did not care.

And besides, the reality that this woman was a half-breed on the verge of going through the change was probably more to the point of the connection thing. Not exactly his own experience coming into the species, but close enough.

“Am I scenting this right?” He looked over at his roommate. His best friend. His true brother, in comparison to the biological ones he’d left in the human world. “Or am I nuts.”

“Nah.” Vishous, son of the Bloodletter, exhaled a cloud of Turkish smoke, his hard features and goatee briefly obscured by the haze. “You ain’t nuts, cop. And I am getting really sick and tired of scrubbing this woman, true?”

“To be fair, you get sick and tired if you have to do anything more than once.”

“Feeling a little judgey tonight, are we.” V waved at the woman to send her off. “Buh-bye—”

“Hold on, she dropped her phone.”

Butch went further into the induction zone and gagged as he shined his light around. Fucking lessers. He’d rather have sweat socks shoved up his nose. But at least he didn’t have to wade around long to find her cell. The thing had landed face-up in the oily mess, and he took a handkerchief out and wiped it off as best he could.

Going over to the woman, he put the thing in the pocket of her windbreaker and stepped back. “Okay, she’s good to go.”

Are you certain about that, some quiet part of him wondered.

“Whatever, I’m sure I’ll see her again,” V said dryly. “Bad penny this human is.”

As she exited and walked off, Butch watched her cross the asphalt and disappear up the concrete stairs. “Is she the one you’ve been monitoring?”

“She just won’t leave it the fuck alone.”

“The one with the website about vampires.”

“Damn Stoker. Real original. Remind me to ask her when I need help with puns.”

Butch looked back at his roommate. “She’s searching for herself. You can’t turn that kind of thing off.”

“Well, her change needs to shit or get off the pot. I got better things to do than check on her hormones like I’m waiting for a goddamn egg to hard-boil.”

“You have such a way with languages.”

“Seventeen, now that I’ve added ‘vampire conspiracist.’ ” V dropped his butt and crushed it with his shitkicker. “You should read some of the shit they post. There’s a whole community of the crackpots out there.”

Butch held up his forefinger. “ ’Scuse me, Professor Xavier, given that we do actually exist, how can you call them crazy?”

“You ready to do this, or do you just want to stand there in that wet cashmere coat of yours.”

Butch brushed at the shoulders of his Tom Ford. “It is so unfair that you know my triggers.”

“You could have just put on leathers. Or stayed home.”

“Style is important. And I didn’t want you to come alone. That’s what she said.”

“Nice joke, Lassiter. Besides, I can handle this by my little lonesome. You know I come with my own special kind of backup.”

V lifted his lead-lined glove to his mouth and took the tip of the middle finger between his sharp, white teeth. Tugging the protective shield off what was underneath, he revealed a glowing hand that was marked on both sides with tattooed warnings in the Old Language.

Holding his curse out, the interior of the storage building lit up bright as noontime, the blood on the floor black, the blood in the six buckets red. As Butch walked around, his footsteps left patterns that were eaten up quick, that which covered the concrete consuming the prints, reclaiming dominance.

Lowering down onto his haunches, Butch dragged his fingers through the shit and rubbed the black stink, testing for viscosity. “Nope.”

V’s icy eyes shifted over. “What?”

“This is wrong.” Butch hit his handkerchief again for cleanup. “It’s too thin. It’s not like it was.”

“Do you think…” V, who never lost track of a thought, lost track of his thought. “Is it happening? Do you think?”

Butch straightened and walked over to one of the buckets. It was a bog-standard drywall container that still had the brand name on it. Inside, the blood that had been drained from the veins of what had